It’s Not the Idea. It’s the Execution.

As you can see in the article 105 Business Ideas, ideas are a dime a dozen. Unless you have a Ph.D and are doing cutting edge research at a top university, in most cases if you have thought of a business idea, someone else has thought of it too.

In 1967, an angel investor, Fred Adler, received over 50 business plans for entrepreneurs who proposed to start microcomputer firms. Only one of the teams presenting this idea ever made it. Its name was Data General. But why did so many entrepreneurs pitching a plan to sell microcomputers either never receive funding or if they were funded, never succeed?

They didn’t make it not because the idea was per se bad or didn’t have the potential to be a good opportunity. It was a great idea and enormous opportunity. Rather, it was because the other entrepreneurial teams were unable to execute.

Always remember that business ideas are a dime a dozen. Just think of the dotcom era of four years ago. But what really matters is the execution and the quality of the team, something the majority of those dotcoms lacked in. I have heard many a venture capitalist say that he or she would rather have an A management team and a B business concept that an A business concept and a B management team. It is not the idea, it is the people, and their ability to execute, that matters. It is not the idea. It is the people, and their ability to execute, that matters.

While a business that ends up being successful could be started with a so-so idea, a successful business will never be built without a good team.

This Entrepreneurship article was written by Ryan P Allis on 2/9/2005

Ryan P. Allis, 20, is the author of Zero to One Million, a guide to building a company to $1 million in sales, and the founder of zeromillion.com. Ryan is also the CEO of Broadwick Corp., a provider of the permission-based email marketing software and CEO of Virante, Inc., a web marketing and search engine optimization firm. Ryan is an economics major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is a Blanchard Scholar. [learn more.

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